


a light in the hallway

by hopeless_hope



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dead May Parker (Spider-Man), Depression, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Mental Health Issues, NOT STARKER - Freeform, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Platonic Cuddling, Precious Peter Parker, Sorry guys, Whump, Worried Tony Stark, bad metaphors, hey look it's me projecting again, spoiler: he gets a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 20:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16960722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_hope/pseuds/hopeless_hope
Summary: “She’s really gone,” Peter whispers, a single tear sliding down his cheek. Tony brushes it away with his thumb.“Yeah, kid,” he agrees quietly. They sit for a moment as Peter breathes through the aching realization that May isn’t coming back. When Peter seems steadier, Tony quietly stands up and holds a hand out to Peter.“Come here a second, bud. There’s something I want to show you.”orIn the wake of May's death, Peter is overcome with darkness. Tony shows him how to make it light again.





	a light in the hallway

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "A Light in the Hallway" by Pentatonix. It's a song I listen to often on bad brain days like today.

Peter wakes up, and everything is dark.

He feels it in his chest. Feels it wrapping around him, feels it in the air, a darkness that coats the inside of his lungs and makes it hard to breathe. It’s inside of him. He’s afraid to look down at himself, scared to see it running through his veins.

He hates these days.

He calls them his Ink Days. They started happening after Ben died, but he’d gotten a hold on them. He knew how to condense it all into just a small cloud that, on good days, hovers far away from him.

When May died, the ink blanketed his world again. He stopped trying to chase it away, because May was always his light. May was all he had left. Out of everyone who’d been taken away from him, Peter had dared to believe she wouldn’t be one of them.

He feels like a fool for ever thinking otherwise.

But then Tony stepped in.

Even though they’d started to grow closer, with Tony even offering Peter a real internship rather than using the fake one as an excuse, Peter never saw this coming. He never imagined that Tony Stark cared about him enough to take him in.

It’s been hard, of course. Over the past month and a half, they’ve had their fair share of arguments and bad days. In the very beginning, Peter refused to get out of bed, letting the dark consume him. Over time, the Ink Days have started happening less and less.

Today is not one of those days. He rolls over and pulls the comforter further over his head, tucking himself further into the large bed as he tries to ignore the longing ache in his chest. He just wants May.

“Mr. Parker,” FRIDAY sounds through the speakers above him. “If you do not get up now, you’ll be late for school. Mr. Hogan is waiting for you downstairs.”

Peter turns his face into the pillow, wishing he could just mute the AI.

“I’m not going to school,” he snaps. He tenses as he waits for FRIDAY’s response, but when it never comes, he relaxes again, giving in to the waves of pain coursing through his body. It makes him feel helpless. Weak. Childish.

A painful lump rises in his throat as he pictures May’s face and kind smile. God, all he wants is her soothing voice telling him it’s going to be okay and her gentle fingers running through his hair. In a moment of perceived weakness, Peter allows frustrated tears to leak from his eyes.

He inhales a harsh sob, and he can practically feel the ink rushing in, clogging his throat. He hates it. He hates it. He holds his breath, desperate to keep all the ink out and all the cries in.

Peter hears soft footsteps and then his mattress compresses as a new weight is added to it. He doesn’t have to look to know who it is.

“Pete?” Tony’s voice questions softly.

Peter holds his breath and tightens the covers around himself. He hears a sigh, and then a hand is tugging at the covers. Tony delicately peels back the comforter and slides in behind Peter, wrapping his arms around the kid and pulling him close.

Tony can feel the tension in Peter’s body as they lay there in the silence of the dark room.

“You’ve gotta breathe, bud,” he whispers gently, rubbing the boy’s arms gently. Peter shakes his head fiercely, trying to keep everything in. He can’t breathe, he _can’t._ There’s too much ink, there’s _too much._

“It’s okay, kiddo. It’s just us here,” Tony coaxes. Peter shakes his head again, but even as he does, a sob pushes its way past his lips, and he nearly chokes on it. He clutches desperately at the arm Tony has wrapped around him.

“I want _May_ ,” he whines childishly, an anguished sound.

“Oh, Peter,” Tony breathes, gently turning the boy over to face him. Peter’s face is crumpled in pain, tears streaming from his eyes as he hitches in shallow breaths. Tony tenderly places his hand on the back of Peter’s head and tucks it under his chin as Peter cries into his neck.

Tony runs his fingers through Peter’s curls, knowing the action soothes him. Peter clutches at the front of Tony’s shirt, tears soaking the man’s neck, but Tony doesn’t care. He just wishes he could take the kid’s pain away.

After what seems like hours, Peter calms down some, still hiccupping from the force of his cries. They lay there in silence, Tony still tugging at Peter’s soft locks. A few minutes pass before Peter breaks the silence.

“It’s all dark,” he whispers hoarsely, and Tony tightens his arm around the kid again. Peter’s told him about his Ink Days. After May died, Peter practically drowned in them. Tony had hoped those days would stay in the past, for the kid’s sake.

“It’s going to be okay,” Tony says, words that feel so useless. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Peter confesses, and Tony’s blood chills in his veins at the words.

“I know, buddy,” Tony sighs. “I know.”

There’s not much they can do on these days besides wait it out, so Tony just holds Peter close until he hears the boy’s breaths even out into exhausted sleep. He’s sure FRIDAY has notified Happy by now that the kid’s not going to school today, but he carefully takes out his phone and texts Pepper to clear his schedule for the day, too.

For a while, Tony just lays next to Peter and watches him sleep. Even in sleep, his face is tense and wrinkled with pain, and Tony sighs heavily. Peter’s words echo in his head, and Tony shifts with unease at how _defeated_ he had sounded.

_“I don’t want to do this anymore.”_

He knows part of Peter’s sadness is deeply rooted in the way he visualizes it, and Tony wishes he could help the kid erase the ink that stains his brain and darkens his world.

Tony thinks back to his darkest days. Back then, he had very few lights in his life. Pepper and Rhodey, maybe. He relied on them to keep him upright, letting himself sink further and further and still hoping they’d drag him back up.

It wasn’t until much later, when Pepper and Rhodey started to pull away slightly, if only to save themselves from being sucked into his spiral, that he realized: he has to make his own light.

The thought sparks something in Tony, and after a moment of thought, he carefully extracts himself from Peter’s grasp, feeling guilty for leaving him. Before turning to leave the room, he stops and leans down to press a quick kiss to the kid’s forehead.

Once Tony steps out of the room, he dials Happy.

“Happy, I need all the Christmas lights we have stored. Bring them to the lab.”

And then he gets to work.

* * *

When Peter wakes up again, he’s not sure what time it is. His room is still dark, but he feels a hand running through his hair and looks up to find Tony sitting next to him, leaning against the headboard.

The man smiles softly at him. “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Or, evening, I should say. Feeling better?”

For one disoriented second, Peter stares at him in confusion before the events of the morning rush back to him. He looks down in shame, ink pooling in his stomach. Tony reaches out a hand to lift the kid’s chin up.

“Hey. Look at me,” Tony commands gently. He waits until Peter’s eyes lock onto his. “It’s all going to be okay.”

Peter swallows thickly, eyes darting to the picture of him and May that sits on the nightstand.

“She’s really gone,” he whispers, a single tear sliding down his cheek. Tony brushes it away with his thumb.

“Yeah, kid,” he agrees quietly. They sit for a moment as Peter breathes through the aching realization that May isn’t coming back. When Peter seems steadier, Tony quietly stands up and holds a hand out to Peter.

“Come here a second, bud. There’s something I want to show you.”

Peter takes his hand and lets Tony pull him up, a confused look on his face. They go through and walk to the other side of the building, and Tony gestures for him to stop once they’ve reached a dark hallway.

He puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder and gently guides him to the wall. Peter squints through the darkness and sees a crank on the wall, attached to a big gear, which is attached to a bunch of smaller gears.

Peter gives Tony a confused look.

“You’ve gotta turn it, Pete,” Tony tells him, alleviating exactly _none_ of his confusion.

Peter steps forward uncertainly and grasps the handle with unsure hands. He carefully starts turning it, waiting for something to happen. When nothing does, he gives Tony a baffled look. Tony merely rolls his eyes and gestures for him to keep going.

Peter puts in more effort this time, turning the crank faster. He’s startled when a row of Christmas lights all along the hallway above him flicker to life. Shocked, Peter stops, and they’re immediately bathed in darkness again.

He quickly starts back up again, watching as the string of lights flicker back to life. This time, though, he doesn’t stop. He watches as the hallway fills with light, at first dim but slowly getting brighter and brighter. When the lights solidify to full brightness, Peter hesitantly stops cranking and lets out a relieved breath when they stay on this time.

Attention no longer focused on the lights, he now spots the giant bean bag at the end of the hall, a thick blanket folded neatly on top of it. Curious, Peter goes closer to inspect it, Tony following close behind.

When he reaches it, Peter kneels down and realizes that the blanket is actually a quilt. He tentatively reaches out and unfolds it, sucking in a sharp breath when he realizes what it is.

After May died, Tony took Peter back to the apartment to get his belongings and pick what he wanted to keep of May’s. When they got to her closet, the familiar scent of her perfume upset him so much that Peter had quickly turned on his heel with a terse, “Donate it. Throw it away. I don’t care.”

Later on, though, Peter would come to regret that decision. He still had one of Ben’s jackets, and even though the comforting scent was long worn out, the familiarity of it always brought Peter comfort. He regretted that he threw away the chance to have that with something of May’s.

Now, though, he can see that Tony didn’t listen to him. He recognizes all the patches, a lump rising in his throat as he runs his fingers over each one.

Behind him, Tony clears his throat.

“I know you told us to donate them all, but Pepper had the idea when she saw all the t-shirts. We know you have Ben’s jacket, and we wanted you to have something of May’s. Over the last couple of weeks, Pepper’s been working on putting this together for you.”

Peter clutches the quilt to his chest and looks at Tony with rapidly-filling eyes.

“I – what is all of this?” Peter croaks out, and Tony rocks back on his heels, looking uncertain. It’s a foreign look on the usually confident man.

“Sometimes – sometimes everything is dark and the only way for it to be light again is for us to make our own,” Tony says, sitting down next to the kid with a sigh. “I guess I just wanted to give you a place where you can remind yourself of that.”

Peter looks at him, chest tight with an emotion he can’t quite explain, somewhere in between love and despair.

Tony points to the crank on the wall. “I know it’s not always going to be easy to do that. I know making it light is hard, but we – me and Pepper and Happy and everyone else – are here to help you. And May – “ he adds, gesturing to the quilt in Peter’s hands, “is a part of that, too. She always will be.”

Peter makes a wounded sound in the back of his throat and falls forward into Tony’s ready arms. Tony catches him and holds him close for the second time that day, gently taking the quilt and wrapping it around the kid crying softly in his arms.

“It’s going to be okay, kid,” Tony promises firmly. Peter nods, desperately trying to believe him. “I’m right here.”

The ink recedes.

-

 _If you're scared of the darkness  
__I will calm your fear_  
_There's a light in the hallway_  
 _So you know I'm here_

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. I know this is another weird one, so it's okay if you don't like it. Today's a bad brain day. Again. A lot of times, I visualize my depression as this thick, black ink and fog that surrounds me and runs through my veins. When two very important people in my life left me, I realized I couldn't rely on other people's light. I had to make my own.
> 
> If you're reading this, please know that you're not alone. Some days, we'll flicker out, but one day, I swear we'll light up the whole damn world. Please stay, because we need your light.
> 
> If you ever need to talk, feel free to message me on tumblr @the-great-escapism.
> 
> (As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated.)


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